So how do I convince my irrational wife to let me skydive?

[happythoughts 0]

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Perhaps as a first step, stop referring to her as "my irrational wife!"

Sure, redundancy rarely helps.

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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Well maybe shes not completely irrational. Throwing yourself out of an airplane isnt exactly normal.

I REALLY want to do it, and get my license but she keeps freakin out and saying I dont care about the welfare of her and the baby (4 1/2...i guess shes still a baby)

When you made the choice to have children they should have become your first priority.

Does your wife earn enough to cover your housing expenses, day care, and college when your child is old enough?

If the answers to any of those questions are "no" you need substantial life insurance, long term disability insurance, and either short term disability insurance or enough savings to cover the time before that kicks in (perhaps 3 months of no pay check).

[mcordell 2]

Skydiving isn't what it used to be. The gear is safer than the jumper now. There are a lot of activities that are more dangerous than skydiving. Does everyone here who rides a motorcycle have a 95 million dollar policy to make sure their spouse or children can spend money like MC Hammer until they lose their mansion to back taxes? How about those of you who are rock climbers too? Yea jumping is dangerous but so is driving your car without a seat belt. Who here puts their own christmas lights up on their house? Lots of people die each year falling off their roof while hanging lights. Each year there are tragic fires due to dry christmas trees catching fire because of lights. A house on my street burned down because of a cooking accident.

Perhaps I should move to a street which has a fast food restaurant on the same side of the road so I don't have to cross the street. Then I can safely walk somewhere to get food I don't have to cook. Then I could stop celebrating the birth of christ, never use candles, and only leave the house when absolutely necessary.

Life is about weighing the risk versus benefit of everything you do and making a decision that makes you happy.

Remember though, almost all skydiving fatalities occur within one mile of the drop zone, so always land off and walk back.

www.facebook.com/FlintHillsRigging

[Mazz 0]

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Perhaps I should move to a street which has a fast food restaurant on the same side of the road so I don't have to cross the street. Then I can safely walk somewhere to get food I don't have to cook. Then I could stop celebrating the birth of christ, never use candles, and only leave the house when absolutely necessary.

That sounds like the life lol.

In the Navy, you can't put your hands in your pockets but I was always told not to put my hands in my pockets by people with their hands in their pockets. Kinda funny huh?

[Remster 24]

Keep up believing that.

Remster

[mcordell 2]

I just found out something that I need to pass along! I discovered that Dihydrogen Monoxide kills more people every year than any other chemical compound on the earth. Everyone stay away from Dihydrogen Monoxide!

(that's water by the way)

www.facebook.com/FlintHillsRigging

[JohnRich 4]

The next time she heads out the door to the car to go shopping, tell her:

"You know, honey, 43,000 people died in auto accidents last year. Perhaps you should be more responsible towards your children, and start making these trips on foot."

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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The next time she heads out the door to the car to go shopping, tell her:

"You know, honey, 43,000 people died in auto accidents last year. Perhaps you should be more responsible towards your children, and start making these trips on foot."

Which is about 1 in 5000 licensed drivers with average chances of being drunk or young.

With skydiving it's 1 in 1000.

[mcordell 2]

2007 odds of dying in a skydiving accident, 1:122,222

Odds of dying in a car accident in the year 2000, 1:18,585

Odds of dying as a pedestrian in an accident, 1:46,901

Dying in an ATV accident, 1:17,416

Choking on an item OTHER THAN FOOD, 1:86,384

Drowning, 1:79,065

Building fire, 1:99,174

Intentional self harm, 1:9,380

Assault, 1:16,421

Legal execution, 1:3,441,325

Poisoning, 1:107,668

You can look at the numbers all you want. What it boils down to is, as previously stated, weighing the risk versus the benefit and making a decision for yourself.

www.facebook.com/FlintHillsRigging

[mrbiceps 0]

Learn to wear the pants in your household man, like i do.
I can come out from underneath the table whenever i want to....

[Chubba 0]

In the meantime, why not go with your wife and yourself to a wind tunnel and have a fly.

Better then getting into a fight.

[mcordell 2]

now THAT is likely the best advice yet! get the feeling of flight and see if it is appealing to you, albeit not the same.

www.facebook.com/FlintHillsRigging

[firstime 0]

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Ok,
First tell your wife this is a second career. A midlife crisis. You have to train to become a coach/instructor. Once she hears you may bring home a few dollars a weekend and she can buy that coach puse she wants, all of a sudden moods change regarding the safety of your life. Approach it from, You are doing this for them not you.

Trust me, it worked on my 3rd and 4th wife just fine.

LMAO very good Rich

[JohnMitchell 14]

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These sort of threads always serve to reaffirm me of my decision to stay single and not have kids. I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, spend as much money as I want and not have to be concerned about catching a verbal lashing or worse when I come home.

They're not all like that

Being married to Vskydiver is pretty cool. She only has two restrictions, base jumping and street bikes.

[Snypam118 0]

you can rent gear, helmet and all and wear it 24/7 and make wind rushing sounds. She'll probably go crazy and make you jump...at least once.

"Nobody believes me when I say riding a motorcycle is scarier than jumping"...

Have 60 static line jumps and thought I was cool until i discovered REAL FLIGHT

[DanG 1]

You are deluding yourself.

What we do is exceptionally dangerous. Downplaying the inherent risk is much more dangerous than understanding the risk and working to minmize it.

- Dan G

[millertime24 8]

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She only has two restrictions, BASE jumping and street bikes.

Thank you for making my point. I have zero restrictions.

Muff #5048

[Skydivesg 6]

A fairly well known philosopher once wrote:


"When it's time to die let us not discover that you have never lived."


"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."

Be the canopy pilot you want that other guy to be.

[ryoder 1,390]

billeisele posted this today in the BF.

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[Orange1 0]

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So how do I convince my irrational wife to let me skydive

You won't.

Its just that simple.

Decide now if your family is more important to you then a hobby. There are many many people in the skydiving world that will tell you about their ex-wives and ex-husbands due to similar.

It cuts both ways. For some reason recently I have met a number of people who turned out to be ex-skydivers, from "my wife made me stop when we got married" to "I decided it was too selfish to spend every weekend at the DZ with a young family".

Definitely take your wife to the DZ though. A work colleague considering a tandem came to look, and was amazed by "how relaxed and happy everyone looked when they landed" !! I guess he was expecting everyone to be quaking with fear! When people see load after load coming down and landing safely they tend to get more relaxed about it.
...just hope no-one has a bad landing in front of her!

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[Orange1 0]

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What we do is exceptionally dangerous. Downplaying the inherent risk is much more dangerous than understanding the risk and working to minmize it.

Well said. One can't talk about weighing the risks vs the benefits if you don't fully understand what those risks are.

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[davelepka 4]

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2007 odds of dying in a skydiving accident, 1:122,222

Odds of dying in a car accident in the year 2000, 1:18,585

You're not looking at the whole story. Consider for a minute the amount of training, planning, and accoutning for safety that goes into a skydive.

Now consider the same for the average drive to the store. Not only do drivers not plan, or train, they don't even pay attention to what they're doing.

You're figures for drivers are from 2000, and I would imagine that the widespread use of cell phones, including texting, and iPods have probably kicked those numbers up a few notches for the year 2007.

Let's also consider the likelyhood of dying in an auto accident in comparison to dying in a skydiving accident. More times than not, a simple mistake in a car will not result in death, whereas in skydiving, you stand a much higher chance of dying if you make a mistake.

The OP in this thread, being married with young children has more than just himself to think about. Starting a new, dangerous hobby may not be a smart move for a guy in his position.

I had years in the sport and 1000's of jumps before I was married or had kids. I'm not sure I would have started jumping if the wife/kids had come first, and to that end, I have not taken up any new, dangerous hobbies since then.

Base jumping - no
Dirt bikes - no
Stunting a street bike - no
Roadracing a bike - no

All things I would be doing if it was just me.

[Sletzer 3]

A girl pounded the ground and broke her ankle during my FJC. The instructor looked at the three of us and said "I bet now you'll pay attention when I teach you how to PLF." I did.

I was undettered, but definitely not good for the SO to see the first time. Reality checks aren't always a bad thing, though.

I will be kissing hands and shaking babies all afternoon. Thanks for all your support! *bows*

SCS #8251

[JohnRich 4]

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"my wife made me stop when we got married"

I bought my first rig from a newlywed skydiver like that. A year later, the wife was gone, and he wanted his rig back.

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"I decided it was too selfish to spend every weekend at the DZ with a young family"

You don't have to immerse yourself in the sport to that degree. When I was raising a family, I jumped one day every other weekend. That was Dad's time to do what he wanted. The other 13 days out of every two weeks were devoted to family. You can have a family, and skydive. You just need to balance the two, and not let skydiving work to the detriment of family. The two can indeed be compatible.

[shropshire 0]

Jolly sensible approach that.... if only we could teach common sense.


I go to the DZ when it fit's into both mine and my wifes' plans - we talk about it - no hissy fits (well not too many). If we have other stuff to do, then that's what we do, as a rule.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome